I'll find something in what I read that snags my imagination in emotional terms; it resonates with me for reasons more complicated than just that it seems like it would make a good story.

The longer you go by yourself the weirder you get, and the weirder you get the longer you go by yourself.

What makes us threaten the things we want most?

Christy has not been given a fair shake. She has not been identified as a competent premier.

I don't beat at the details, but I do always keep in mind that anything that isn't A) moving the story forward or B) enlarging my understanding of the central characters has to be sacrificed. I have huge folders of details - research - with a story like Netherlands. Only a very small part of it gets used. The old iceberg analogy again.

She thought she'd put up with however many years of stonewalling for a good reason, and she'd just figured out that as far as Castle Hubby went, she hadn't even crossed the moat yet.

I feel like one of the things I'm trying most to do is stretch my empathetic reach, as far as it will go. I got as far as Gilles de Rais' assistant, for example, and not really as far as de Rais himself.